The Liberation of Marguerite Harrison
America's First Female Foreign Intelligence Agent
As Marguerite had feared, no one was sure what had happened to her after she left Chita. Vice Consul Edward Thomas apparently was unable to confirm whether she had been taken from the train at the station outside the city. U.S. officials and news reporters assumed she had been sent to Moscow, but no one …
Continue reading "Harrison wins release under murky circumstances"
Robert Collins Getting into Russia was a complicated matter. The Bolsheviks had stopped allowing most Western journalists into the country as they sought to solidify their power in the midst of a bloody civil war and a blockade was wreaking havoc on the economy. The United States did not have diplomatic relations with Russia, so …
Marlborough Churchill’s decision to send Marguerite Harrison to Russia is testament to the confidence America’s intelligence service directors had in her. Tommy Harrison was co-captain of the football team in Gilman when his mother pulled him out of school to take him with her to Switzerland. Photo courtesy of Gilman School. In the autumn 1919, …
Continue reading "The mission to Russia challenges America’s top spies"
Marguerite Harrison returned to the United States the summer of 1919 went back to work at the Baltimore Sun while she waited for Military Intelligence Division officials to decide on her next assignment. Her superiors had been so impressed with her work, they fought over where she should go next. Colonel Edward Davis, who ran …
Continue reading "Coming and going: Harrison’s next assignment"
The Liberation of Marguerite Harrison 